Landlord Didn’t Inform Me Of 24 Hours To Return To Clean After Move Out

Location: Billings, MT

Hello! My family and I moved out of our rental after 1 year. We paid $1599/month.

Upon moving in, the walls and baseboards were scuffed, there was a very rough patch job in the kitchen, baseboards in some spots weren’t flush with the floor causing gaps, we had an ant problem after living there for two days. While being there, there was one thumb sized hole behind the front door because my kids learned how to open the door plus they bent some blades on the blinds in their bedroom and the living room.

Anywho, I put our 30 day notice in to move out. I was told to either turn the keys in at the office or leave them in the rental and email a photo. We moved out on a Thursday. Friday, I get an email from the property manager asking if I received the move out report. I responded that I hadn’t and she sent over a copy. This had tiny thumbnails of photos and at the top of the report, said there were zero severe actions or something along those lines. I responded to the email asking if anything needed to be done with the report to which they responded Monday letting me know that I had 24 hours to return and clean up anything that they noted needing addressed. But since the time had passed, I no longer had the opportunity. Keep in mind, this is the first I’m learning about the 24 hour return to clean.

Given the nature of the report and the condition we left the rental in, I wasn’t concerned about losing much of our deposit. One month later, we receive our deposit check in the mail to which they took over half of it. I reached out as I was upset and had I known of the 24 hour clean, I would have taken it. All I got back from them was “they’re sorry” and “they’ll do better going forward” but I’m still mad about it. I had taken a walk through video but it was deleted and I no longer have it. I asked why it wasn't made clear to return to address the problem areas (a blurry thumbnail in the middle of the other blurry thumbnails in the move out report), I was told that returning to clean would have exceeded the deposit amount and that I would have ended up owing them. Is it because our last day of the lease fell on a Thursday? Is this something I can pursue or just let them continue being shady?

Edit: Editing to add that part of what we were charged for was paint touch ups, filling pinholes (we don’t hang anything up except a calendar with a command hook), and of course cleaning.